page_title: East Lancashire Royal Engineers
section_title: 42nd Assault Regiment
hierarchical_section_title: East Lancashire Royal Engineers / World War II / 42nd Assault Regiment
caption_attribution_description: English: I suggest that this logo qualifies for use under condition 3, ie it was demonstrably in use during WWII Folks at 137 06:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC) Bulls head. 79th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)
context_page_description: The East Lancashire Royal Engineers was a Volunteer unit of Britain's Royal Engineers raised in Manchester in 1901. It became the engineer component of the 42nd Division of the Territorial Force, seeing service in Egypt, at Gallipoli and on the Western Front during World War I. In World War II it was in the Dunkirk evacuation with 42nd Division, and then converted to the armoured assault engineer role in 79th Armoured Division in North West Europe. Its duplicate unit served in Tunisia and Italy. The unit continues today as part of 75 Engineer Regiment in the Army Reserve.
context_section_description: After Dunkirk 42nd (EL) Division reformed and re-equipped in the UK. On 1 November 1941 it was converted into 42nd Armoured Division, with the divisional RE reorganised as follows:
  200 (East Lancs) Fd Co – became 16 Field Squadron
  201 (East Lancs) Fd Co – became 17 Field Squadron (617 Fd Sqn from 1 March 1943)
  203 (East Lancs) Fd Park Co – became 149 Field Park Squadron
  250 (East Anglian) Fd Co – left 14 October 1941
  On 17 October 1943 42nd Armoured Division was disbanded, but the divisional RE was converted into 42nd Assault Regiment, RE, in 1st Assault Brigade, RE, of 79th Armoured Division. The regiment was equipped with the Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), and had the following organisation:
  16 Assault Sqn
  617 Assault Sqn
  149 Assault Park Sqn – combined with 1st Assault Bde HQ May 1944 to January 1945
  222 Assault Sqn – 222 (2nd London) Fd Co joined from 47th (London) Infantry Division
  557 Assault Sqn – 557 (West Lancs) Fd Co joined from 55th (WL) Division
  Signal detachment, Royal Corps of Signals
  Light Aid Detachment, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
  Although the regiment trained hard in its new role for the Allied invasion of Normandy, (Operation Overlord), it was not until April 1944 that the first production Churchill AVREs arrived. When D Day arrived, 42nd Assault Rgt was not committed at first, and regimental HQ (RHQ) only landed at Juno Beach with 16, 222 and 617 Sqns on 17 August. 557 Assault Sqn remained at Parham, West Sussex and was expanded to become a training regiment supplying AVRE crews to the units in NW Europe; later it also took over the role of 'F Wing', 1 Assault Bde's experimental unit. For a week after the regiment's arrival in Normandy,  the whole of 1st Assault Bde was concentrated at the River Orne for training on the new Class 50/60 tank raft.
caption: 79th Armoured Division's formation badge.
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